Made it to Alaska!

We made it to our hotel in Haines Junction and settled in.  It is a small village and the hotel was suspect.  It was old, as most things are on the Alcan, but it was comfortable and had hot water for a decent shower so I"m good :P. We walked over to a restaurant for some grub and a beer.  While there a local lady started to chat us up, she "works for the Chief".  I was curious to ask what work she did but for some reason didn't, she was a chatter anyway.  I told Joe about wanting to ask her that and he was like he wondered too but didn't ask because she was already somewhat full of herself.  Liked to talk and had limited listening capabilities.  

People like to give us advice about this move, which is appreciated, but they hardly listen to what we already know and how we feel about things.  Once this becomes apparent we let them talk and then we go about our day.  

Our hotel did face a beautiful snow capped mountain range!  Amazing beauty in this area!

We got up and the coffee shop across the street actually served espresso drinks! Praise be! this is the first morning that Tux is making it apparent he's over this traveling business and hid under the bed when we were getting ready and packing up the car.  Poor guy but he's a trooper and it wasn't a big production to get him in his carrier so that's a blessing.

It was a very short drive to Tok, Alaska but it was good because it gave us a lot of down time.  We are both getting worn out and tired with the driving and packing.  Crossing the border was easy and they asked about any guns.... seriously people we have no guns!

We had a big lunch and lazed around a little bit before having a light dinner and going to bed.

The next morning, Tux hid again, poor guy.  But it was off to our new home.

Joe has been keeping in touch with the lady that owns the condo we are interested in and we gave her a heads up that we'd be there later that day and that we'd like to see the condo later that afternoon.

We have rented an AirBnB close to downtown Anchorage, 2 bedrooms and a kitchen for us to relax a bit.  We got settled in the AirBnB and then went to find some lunch and found the Gumbo House which worked well for us.  This whole weekend is overcast and rainy so it was nice to have some jambalaya to warm us up!  We were getting worried about not hearing back from Kelli, landlady, but decided to drive and check out the area.  

It's about 20 minutes from down town.  We were hoping for something closer but it's hard to find garages near downtown and that is one of 'would really like" to have.  It's just a little bit smaller than our apartment in Florida so we will have to do some wrangling with our stuff, more downsizing which we are cool with!  The area is quiet and it's on a lake.  No threw driving, which Joe likes.  We are on the top floor so no one walking above us and we think the one below us is an AirBnb.  We liked the drive by and still hadn't  heard from Kelli so we were getting bummed and then she got back to us with some times, late that night (after 8pm) and tomorrow! Ugh... Joe mentioned tomorrow due to wanting to see it during the daylight and she asked if we could see it "now" and we were like 10 minutes out so off we went.  She was suppose to meet us there but after 20 minutes of waiting we got a call.  She had someone walk into her office with no appointment but told us how to get in to the condo and let us look on our own (which I like to do).  

Walking around the place, the only "con" was figuring out where to put Tux's litter box! LOL. Like I said it hit on the things we were looking for: garage, space, price range, and close to my work.  With it being a condo we work directly with the landlady to get things fixed etc.  We don't have to worry about snow removal, that's covered already!  Oh and the place has a gas fireplace :). 

We are going to meet with her at noon today to do the paperwork so we can move in on Monday when we are due out of the AirBnB.  We haven't heard about our shipment from TMO, it is due to be here 25 September (Monday) but we'll buy some sleeping bags that we will need to get anyway :P

We really didn't want the stressor of trying to find a place while living in hotels etc.  We've been looking online for months and this one has been the best fit for all of our "wants".  I didn't find one closer to downtown but less square footage :( 

Animal sittings:

Buffalo: a big herd…. while typing of this entry!

Caribou: 9 alive and 1 carcass
Deer: 5

Dall Sheep: 1 mob

Rabbit: 1

Prairie Dog: 1

Tundra Swan: 6